Mission of the Sacred Heart
by Experimental
Summary: Ten years ago, Duo left the Preventers and disappeared without a word as to where he was going. Now, following a tip from an old comrade, Wufei finds himself at an old mission.


Inspired by "Mission (A World Record)" by Jeff Lynne and Electric Light Orchestra. Contains references to Duo's _Episode Zero_.

* * *

Mission of the Sacred Heart 

— 

The sign identifies it as the Mission of the Sacred Heart. An old stucco building with the typical bell-curve facade. There is dust under his feet covering the path. It is the path. Various species and sizes of cactus and aloe decorate the front yard. 

He told them whom he was looking for and they let him wait in the courtyard, saying that person was out but would be returning soon. Perhaps he wasn't mistaken in catching a hint of suspicion in their manner toward him. Despite his plain clothes, after so many years he can't help but carry himself with authority. 

He passes rooms lined with small portraits of the saints, their eyes unnaturally wide and darkened with shadows by the suffering they have seen. It takes him back to the red temples of his youth, vacuous and a strong scent of incense always hanging on the air. In such sparseness, the line between poverty and luxury becomes quite blurry, doesn't it? 

In the center of the courtyard surrounded by cloisters, there is a small fountain. There is no water in it, but the turquoise and terra cotta-colored tiles still seem to glisten. Around it, rose bushes are blooming profusely in yellows and pinks. An African tulip tree shades one corner of the courtyard. Its shriveled red flowers litter the patchy grass like small discarded banana peels. 

Looking at this still scene, he removes his jacket and folds it in two, then sits down on the low wall beneath the cloister with his back against a column. 

A little while later, a priest ascends the front path in his footsteps. His black tunic is long and faded with dust and his shoes old, his head shielded from the sun by a wide-brimmed hat. His face is deceptively young and fresh and dusted by faint freckles that the Earth sun has brought out, and there is the lightness of the colony-born in his step, the slight slump of the colony-born in his shoulders. 

He stops outside the gate to watch a pair of boys playing on the dirty, worn-out sidewalk. The mobile suit action figures in their hands were discontinued before the ink was dry on the 196 peace treaty, but in this impoverished country they are a childhood luxury. Something in their innocent, make-believe wars reminds him of himself. Turning away, the priest whistles as he comes up the steps. 

He hands over his hat and the groceries he has brought back in a woven bag he now takes from his shoulder. His smile wavers as they tell him he has a visitor waiting for him in the courtyard. 

He recognizes the man who sits looking out at the small garden, and despite the midday sun and the dry air he feels a chill beneath the shade of the cloister. 

"Wufei," he says in such a way as to suggest it has been years since he formed those syllables. 

The other looks up at the name. It takes a moment before uncertain recognition fills his dark eyes as well. And he wonders how he could even harbor uncertainty toward the braid and violet eyes above the priest's collar. 

He gets up, and comes forward as though for a better look. "Duo Maxwell?" he says. Then he corrects himself. "Or . . . I guess I should call you Father, now." 

"Duo's fine," Duo laughs, but it is strained laughter. "Between old friends." 

They move as though to embrace each other, as though that is only fitting and proper after such a long leave of absence, but they settle for putting a hand on the other's shoulder instead. 

"It's been a long time," Wufei says. It's a trite phrase, but he is not being trite. "How are you?" 

"Well. And you? You're still with the Preventers?" 

Wufei nods. 

"How are things back at the office? Trowa still there?" 

"He is. Just barely, though. The demonstrations on the Moon had a bad effect on him, I think. It hit all of us pretty hard. Did you hear about it?" 

"I read about it in the paper." 

"Then I don't need to tell you things have changed a lot in the last ten years. Since you left. We've all changed. We're not as idealistic as we once were, I'm afraid." 

"Were we ever?" 

"You've changed, too, Maxwell." 

"Thanks for stating the obvious. Yep. No more government paycheck for me. I'm back to being a beggar." Duo smiles sardonically. "So, what brings you here? Heero alert you guys to my position?" 

The smile Wufei tries to hide says guilty as charged. 

"If you're here to convert me back, I'll tell you right now it isn't going to work. And if you're looking for forgiveness . . . Well, you know better than anyone I'm not exactly the best person to ask." 

"That's not why I came." 

"Then why?" 

Because I was curious, Wufei wants to say as the honest truth. I wanted to see if it was true what they said, that you, of all people, had actually taken orders. Suddenly he can't find the courage to say that. It sounds cruel somehow to say that to the person with whom he had nearly suffocated in space, and who had backed him up any number of times. That is, before he resigned and disappeared without a word like Heero did before him. 

"I missed you," he settles for. 

"Nope," says Duo. "I'm not buying that kind of sentimentalism from you, Chang. Try again." 

"You disappeared without saying anything. What did you expect me to do when I heard where you were? People wondered if you might have died." 

Duo's smile finally falls. 

"I just had enough of the bureaucracy. You can tell them that for me, if they need a reason that bad," he says as he walks toward the garden. He does not go past the edge of the shade of the cloister. "It was a promise that I made with someone a long time ago. That I never intended to keep." 

"Hilde? . . ." Wufei starts to say. He recalls like it was yesterday Duo's frustration when she unexpectedly fell ill. Not even the colony-born are immune to the wasting disorders of space. 

Duo smiles sadly. "No. Someone who told me once that I would make a great priest. I didn't believe that person then, because I couldn't believe in God and I couldn't believe there could ever be 'true peace.'" 

"And now?" 

"I've finally figured out that's not the issue." 

His answer puzzles Wufei, who thought that was the entire issue. He isn't sure what to say. 

"There is a God, Wufei," Duo says instead and turns to him. "But it's not what everyone thinks it is. That's the problem. God isn't a person, and it isn't a thing. It's not good or evil, and you can't sin against it. It's all in _here_," he says and taps the side of his head. "The power to make a difference. What you do with it is what counts." 

"I don't know what you mean," Wufei says, "but it doesn't sound like something a man of the cloth would say, let alone the Duo I knew." 

Duo smiles mischievously, but he says: "Well, never mind. The fact of the matter is, it's people we sin against. Because we're weak, right, just like you said." 

Wufei is silent. Again he turns his eyes to the garden. A big black bumblebee touches down on a yellow rose. 

"I was weak as well," Duo continues. "If I was going to fulfill that promise, I should have gone to Ell-two. Instead I came here. I told myself, there are poor and hungry on Earth, too. There are poor and hungry everywhere. It doesn't matter where I go as long as I can help those who are suffering. After all the people I've killed, after all the running I've done, that's the least I can do. But even that was just an excuse. To escape the life of a Preventer. It's no different from being a soldier. That life has never suited me." 

"I know." That is why he and Trowa have stayed so long. "That's why we couldn't blame you for leaving." 

"Just for disappearing," Duo finishes for him. He adds after a moment: "Can I tell you the real reason I came to Earth?" 

Wufei doesn't care, but he says nothing. 

"Not that I'm trying to excuse my actions or anything. I just feel like I have to tell someone." 

He doesn't have to tell Wufei. Wufei would rather he didn't. The black bumblebee lifts off. 

"I was afraid to go back to Ell-two. I, the God of Death, am afraid to return to that place even now. Imagine that." 

Again, Wufei says nothing. The priest standing beside him with his hands clasped behind his back seems frail in this summer heat. 

Perhaps in the back of his mind, when he stepped inside the gate of the mission, Wufei had thought he could find some absolution here. Maybe if an old comrade found God here, he might be able to catch an echo of that distant voice that had eluded him as well. But now he feels like the priest, listening to a friend's confession. It puts him in an awkward place, having that responsibility. 

Who are you? he wonders as he watches the friend he once thought he knew. But, then again, who am I? 

"It's peaceful here," he says emptily, as though the words they had just shared were a mirage. As though he were starting from scratch. "You could just watch the world go by, in a place like this." 

"I think I'll stay," Duo says with a small sigh like he's just decided. 

It's impossible to tell whether he's making a joke. Knowing Duo, he is and is not. 


End file.
